Shelves that are mounted on office machines such as printers or sorters should, for convenience of transport, storage, or repair, be easily mounted and dismounted from the body of the office machine. For this reason, most conventional shelf plate mounting mechanisms have been of the type in which the plate is merely inserted into an insertion slot formed in the body of the office machine. Shelf plate mounting mechanisms have also been employed in which screws are used to ensure a connection between the body of the machine and the shelf plate.
Of these two conventional approaches to mounting a shelf plate, the first has a disadvantage in that the shelf plate is apt to accidentally fall off when stacks of paper sheets are removed from the shelf. The second approach involving the use of screws to attach the shelf plate is also undesirable in that the operation of mounting and dismounting the plate is troublesome.
In view of these disadvantages of the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a shelf plate which can be mounted on the body of an office machine in an improved manner to facilitate the operation of mounting and dismounting the plate, and at the same time, to prevent the plate from accidentally falling off the machine. This and other objects of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the disclosure of the preferred embodiment which follows hereinbelow and the attached drawings.